For the sixth straight year, Weber State men’s basketball ranked in the top 100 in the nation in attendance. The Wildcats finished with the 75th highest attendance average in the country according to attendance number released by the NCAA.

For the 2015-16 season, Weber State averaged 6,785 fans per game for the 14 home games. A total of 94,995 fans attended Wildcat games this past season at the Dee Events Center. The national home attendance average for all Division I schools last season was 4,744 fans per game.

The Wildcats also led the Big Sky Conference in attendance for the eighth straight season, averaging more than 2,800 fans more than the next closest team in attendance. The ‘Cats have now led the conference in attendance in 13 of the last 15 years.

Weber State had the 14th highest attendance average among schools in the western United States. The Wildcats also finished with a higher attendance average than six Pac-12 schools, seven Mountain West schools nine West Coast schools and all but one Big West School.

In 10 years under head coach Randy Rahe, Weber State has posted a 127-22 (.852) record at the Dee Events Center. Rahe, WSU’s all-time leader in coaching wins, is 76-10 (.884) at home in Big Sky regular season games.

Imagine what our average attendance would look like if we could get some named schools to come play at the Dee OOC

62 Western Conferences Attendance Standings from highest to lowest for all Pac 12, WCC, Big Sky, Big West, Mountain West and WAC teams. (Not Sure where the article got the 14th highest out west for Weber, according to NCAA.com, Weber has the 13th highest average)

As for Weber, we dropped 2 spots from #73 last year, an average of 44 fans, and dropped 606 total fans from last year, and we won the conference this year. Proves playing on tv and the poor home schedy hurt our attendance.

I think a good goal for athletics is to look at the number of seats at the Dee and then actually try to fill them. Imagine the difference between playing in front of 6K fans and 9K fans. The Montana game was electric. Why? The Dee was actually somewhat full.

talhadfoursteals wrote:I think a good goal for athletics is to look at the number of seats at the Dee and then actually try to fill them. Imagine the difference between playing in front of 6K fans and 9K fans. The Montana game was electric. Why? The Dee was actually somewhat full.

The stakes and the fact that it's become such a heated rivalry added to it as well, Wildcat Nation represented well that night, even Griz fans were impressed.

talhadfoursteals wrote:I think a good goal for athletics is to look at the number of seats at the Dee and then actually try to fill them. Imagine the difference between playing in front of 6K fans and 9K fans. The Montana game was electric. Why? The Dee was actually somewhat full.

The stakes and the fact that it's become such a heated rivalry added to it as well, Wildcat Nation represented well that night, even Griz fans were impressed.

All good and valid points. I hope that they will have a plan for making significant improvement in attendance. If all that they have is business as usual, then they have no plan. Any valid plan will have a strong and varied approach to getting students involved with athletics. Students are the targeted demographic that has the most potential for rapid growth. After that, it would be local businesses and community organizations. Next would be area K - 12 schools. Each and every game should have one or more components from each of those areas. Every game, all of the target demographics, one or more promotions within each demographic target. Marketing and game operations should be going 100 miles an hour right now, lining it all up.

The other component of it, and the only way to increase season ticket sales, is to upgrade our home schedule. If coach is unable to get it done, then the task should be delegated to someone who can. No excuses!

I see no reason, with the proper effort out of everyone, that we can not get to 9K per game this season and more in years to come. With marketing properly done, we should see a steady increase in season ticket sales over the next 10 years. They just need to keep in mind that increasing season ticket sales is the hardest and slowest way to increase attendance. However, that should be the end goal for all of the other promotions.